


nature vs nurture

by ThinkingCAPSLOCK



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkingCAPSLOCK/pseuds/ThinkingCAPSLOCK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He was my boss, too."</p><p>(in retrospect, it all makes sense)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nature vs nurture

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i wish with all my heart  
> we'd actually gotten s2 of motorcity

Mike doesn't know why he didn't see it before. The similarities, the habits, everything is plain as day now that it's spelled out in front of him. He guesses it has something to do how rarely he images them together, and how he keeps them in different boxes in his mind. One box for Detroit Deluxe and the sterile air above and his mistakes in the past. One box for the Burners and the future and the acidic burn in the back of his throat telling him he's here, right now.

Julie is firmly in box two, somewhere between the smoke and oil and tire marks. Kane is in box one, stuffed at the top of a closet, falling down and scattering on the floor every so often.

The hair is a big hint. The same black strands that weave through Julie's appear in sparse patches at the side of Kane's. The reds that catch in the neon glow of Antonio's are the same that appear in the stark light of the academy. The bushy eyebrows, prominent on Kane's face, so rarely seen on Julie's.

Otherwise, their appearances aren't that similar, and Julie must not have been lying when they talked under what passes for stars and she said she took after her mother in everything but her hair. Mike had been close enough to know, though, that they have the same eyelashes.

(but not close enough to know Kane had a-)

Their passion and personality is the other clue. Kane is tenacious, zealous, dedicated, unyielding. A natural leader. Explosive under pressure, self destructive, goal oriented. Beneath a layer of nerves, Jules is the same. She can take command in a terrible situation when Mike's down or out. She doesn't take no for an answer. She digs and hunts information for them, from the jaws of the beast, from the edge of the known universe. Her anger is sparks and flickers and the burning supernova in the sky, catching all in its path.

And he sees Julie burn herself, every day, going at it alone.

Julie doesn't seem to know he knows. He stops trying to drop hints after a few days, after the awkward silences make the already thick air unbearable. He doesn't know if she wants him to, or if she's just working up the courage he knows she has deep down. So he watches the highlights of Julie's hair and the fire burning in her soul and the deep, dark pits of her eyes, and he waits.

When the time comes, he'll help her out. Talk to her. Tell her it's alright. How much he knows it hurts, how much struggle it is, how it wrecks your core to be so close and so far apart. How the caring doesn't go away, even when you force it. He'll tell her that he's seen her loyalty and nothing can make him question where she stands. It's only fair.

Kane was his father, too.


End file.
